


Golden Years

by NancyBrown



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, Rapid Aging, Torchwood Cliche Fest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-28
Updated: 2012-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-30 05:38:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NancyBrown/pseuds/NancyBrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I look like my grandfather."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Golden Years

**Author's Note:**

> trope: alien artefact causes weird aging issues

Tosh caught Ianto checking his thin hair in the reflection of the greenhouse window. A deep frown marred his face, dragging the saggy skin downward. Self-consciously, she put her hand to the back of her own head, pulling a silvery lock forward for inspection. "Don't feel so bad," she told him.

"Easy for you to say. Yours isn't falling out. I look like my grandfather."

Jack stepped out of his office. "Remind me to invite myself to your next family reunion. Your grandfather's hot."

Ianto pulled another face.

Jack called down to Medical, where Owen was performing an exam on Gwen. "You two, get up here."

"In a minute!" snapped Owen, all crotchety belligerence.

"What?" said Gwen.

"I said, get up here."

"My ears are fine!" she shouted back. Slowly, the two of them made their way up the stairs, holding onto the railing carefully. Owen wasn't sure how brittle their bones were, fifty years on, and he said he didn't want them to take risks.

"I've figured it out," said Jack, beaming. A sigh of relief went through the room. The artefact had activated unexpectedly, and no-one was taking the blame. Tosh had been running a diagnostic, true, but she'd had it sitting on her desk. Owen said he'd seen Ianto dusting nearby, Ianto said he'd seen Gwen in button-pressing mode, Gwen swore Owen knocked into it. Currently Jack was the only one any of them trusted to touch the device as he sorted out how to change them back. Despite also having aged fifty years, he looked exactly the same, not a hair out of place.

"So fix us," Gwen said, as Jack handed the Geezer Laser to Tosh, pointing out the modifications he'd made. She examined the interface closely.

Owen said, "Yeah. The faster we get back, the faster your toy-boy stops looking like a pensioner."

"Fuck off," said a very old, very annoyed Ianto.

"I think it'll be okay," Tosh said, handing it back to Jack. "Do we want to test the laser on just one of us?" She glanced around at her grey-haired (and balding) colleagues.

"In for a penny," Gwen said, like someone's gran.

"Right." Jack turned the switch. Once again, Toshiko was overtaken with a wrenching pain that began in her shoulders and radiated out everywhere. She shut her eyes and tried not to scream as her body rewrote itself. She fell into her chair, barely aware of the contortions and agonies the others went through around her, until blessedly, the pain settled away.

She opened her eyes.

The first person she saw was Jack, who of course looked exactly the same.

Owen had vanished. No, just shrunk. A surly little boy, no more than six, stood inside the voluminous lab coat around his ankles. A five-year-old (or so) girl with wide eyes and a dark fringe sat on the floor beside him. Tosh looked down at her own smaller body in horror. Jack would have to take legal custody of them, pretend to foster or adopt the lot, send them to school, even. They'd have to regain their own bodies over the course of decades.

Tosh would have to relive puberty.

Jack said, "Whoops."

The toddler wearing Ianto's oversized suit began to cry.

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel: [It's Like Having a Dream Where Nobody Has a Heart](http://archiveofourown.org/works/701390)


End file.
